Practicum? Sorted! Signed up and started.

Dissertation? Rejections from 4 supervisors so far. Still waiting on a response from my preferred supervisor.

Ok well it’s technically week 2 on the timetable, but it’s week 1 of ‘normal’ lectures. Don’t worry about keeping up. I’m confused as hell!

What is not as confusing is the lectures. It has been a pleasure to start actually learning stuff, rather than feeling like I’m expected to know everything already.

I am reminded of a diagram I used often in business and still sometimes use with clients – the stages of competence. Last week I took a leap up to the first step of Conscious Incompetence (I began to know what I didn’t know). It actually felt more like a plummet to be honest, but it was actually a step forward.

This week I started filling in the gaps.

We got a schedule through of the assignments and due dates, and there is a slightly intimidating 11,000 words worth of assessments to be completed before December. However, I have written 2 books, each of around 80,000 words so I should be ok.

I also went to the library. We have a group presentation to prepare for in a couple of weeks so we headed to the library to get some Google Slides set up and get the outline of the content sorted. I did find myself wondering where all the books were though. I asked my course mates and they pointed out that we had only gone on the first floor and the books were on the next floor up. So I still need to overcome that hurdle. But one step at a time. Google Slides works really well by the way. We’re all set up and can contribute. I’ve got my slides done already. I can’t tell you how many presentations I’ve had to write and deliver in my life so far! That was a bit of a confidence boost though.

We have another group presentation to prepare for in another module but we have a bit longer on that one.

The discussion of two papers in one of the lectures showed that I had a decent grasp of the core elements, even though we haven’t covered them yet. So that was also reassuring.

Of course the big news is that I have a Practicum. Yay! Along with my dissertation, this is a core part of my course. I am doing it under the supervision of Roger Van Gompel and I will start pretty much straight away. So if I can just sort a supervisor out I will be on track.

So far time management is working out ok. I am seeing clients in the evenings and all day Saturday, and then keeping Sunday free to do stuff with my daughter. Ask me again in a few months and you may get a very different answer though!